Developing a Disease Control Programme

This module aims to provide students with knowledge and critical understanding of the principles and processes of designing and monitoring a disease control programme in a low or middle-income country.

In most low and middle-income countries diseases including, COVID, EBOLA, leishmania, malaria, TB and VHFs continue to be major causes of human suffering and preventable death. Interventions to control these diseases are well-described and proven to be effective but they are often not widely applied due to lack of resources, political commitment, and/or health systems issues. In the first three weeks, experts in the field present specific aspects of the above disease control programmes, taking account of changing epidemiological and demographic profiles, using the latest recommended interventions to control the diseases in question, and consider effective mechanisms to implement disease control interventions.

In this module, we will provide students with tools to develop a disease control programme that addresses gaps in service delivery at district level. We follow a participatory approach as it is done by a district health management team and together work through the planning cycle: situational analysis and needs assessment, priority setting, problem analysis, option appraisal, implementation plan including logical framework, and monitoring and evaluation. Students will learn how to identify a disease control problem from a real life, self-selected research study and alongside the teaching sessions they will develop their own programme. At the beginning of the second third week of the module students will present the programme outline and receive formative feedback.

The module is taught using a student-centred approach including tutor-led presentations, group work, student-led presentations, and self-study. It is assessed by a 3000-word written disease control programme, written in a format of a report and using clearly defined Terms of Reference.

Aims

LSTM education courses are taught within a dynamic environment by staff working at the cutting-edge of research in tropical medicine and global health. They are designed to enable the professional development of the student, to be relevant to students from both the UK and overseas and to promote approaches to study that will enable students to continue their learning into the future.

This course aims to:

• Use existing global and local knowledge and intelligence to identify disease control priorities within a country.
• Debate the key constraints with delivery of improved health outcomes in existing disease control programmes.
• Appraise strategies, identify options and develop an action plan to improve delivery within the context of the existing health system, taking into account health care need, the socioeconomic, geographic environment and existing services.
• Interpret and devise health and disease control indicators and devise a monitoring and evaluation programme.

Entrance Requirements

English language requirements

Attending course with Academic Credit:
The course is taught in English. Students whose first language is not English must provide evidence of their language skills. A full list is available on our website https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/english-language-requirements and https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/lstm-english-language-waiver-programme

Attending course – Certificate of Attendance Only:
The course is taught in English and in a postgraduate setting. Students whose first language is not English should be aware that to benefit from the course participants should have English language proficiency at the equivalent of an IELTS (International English Language Testing System) score of at least 6.5.